


Cold Snap

by Deannie



Series: Comfort and Joy and Zombies [4]
Category: The Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombies, M/M, Old West
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-09
Updated: 2015-12-09
Packaged: 2018-05-05 23:21:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5394017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deannie/pseuds/Deannie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The God damned zombies were suddenly coming out like locust in spring, sometimes two and three waves in a day, even when the sun was up. Four Corners was prospering, and any town that was living and growing was a full-on meal ticket for the things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cold Snap

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is part of my Zombie Mag 7 universe (and no, the boys aren't zombies). All you need to know about that universe to read this fic is that Ezra and Chris both want to be a couple but they can't because Ezra has reasons, and Four Corners is a walled city that the Seven defend from zombies, who are, you know, zombies. And hungry.

> _In 1874, an epidemic began sweeping the southwestern and western sections of the United States of America. Those afflicted became violent and blood-thirsty, and those who died usually came back to life, more violent and more blood-thirsty. In the New Mexico Territory sat a small town called Four Corners, which was blessed with a group of people willing to do what they could and use the gifts that they had to save the town and maybe the territory from those that a dapper young gambler and a brave young healer called “zombies…”_

 

Chris Larabee shook off the cold as he slipped into the saloon and looked around for someone to share a coffee with. The freezing weather outside was unusual for December in these parts, and he cursed it for more reasons than the need for thicker socks.

The God damned zombies were suddenly coming out like locust in spring, sometimes two and three waves in a day, even when the sun was up. Four Corners was prospering, and any town that was living and growing was a full-on meal ticket for the things. Harper Hollow, up north, had been overrun twice since the weather turned cold. Lost nearly twenty men, women, and children.

Hell. Maybe he’d forego the coffee for a whiskey instead.

Ezra Standish and Josiah Sanchez were sitting at what had become the group’s regular table, drinking the coffee he’d come looking for. Chris had just left Buck to lead the daytime guard at the gate, and he’d seen JD lounging on the watchtower above the jail. He expected Nathan and Vin were around somewhere, but he wasn’t going out looking for them.

The saloon was sadly decorated with what little Inez had been able to scrounge. Evergreens were plentiful just ten miles away in the foothills, but no woman in her right mind, even one with as much nerve and spit as their saloon manager, would go out beyond the fence just to make sure she got some juniper for Christmas.

As if on cue, the rifles started up and Buck hollered out, “Northwest! Fifteen of them!”

Chris listened for the church bell, but the rifles kept firing without a call for more guns to back up the guards.

“I will be very glad when spring comes,” Ezra sighed, coughing lightly and puffing on one of the sweet-smelling cigars Nathan had given him for his lung problems. “I would never have thought zombies would enjoy the cold weather so.”

While Ezra’s words were blithe and mildly irritated, Chris could sense the tension thrumming through the younger man as the nearness of the threat they’d all learned to live with. Chris knew that, if he looked outside, Vin would have appeared out of the woodwork to fight the coming wave, unable to stand by and let others beat the menace back. The two younger men were alike in that, he thought, as Ezra stood without another word, settling his gunbelt and heading outside. Chris enjoyed the view as he left, quashing the inevitable longing to dust. Again.

He and Ezra had danced around each other from the moment Ezra rode down into the valley where Four Corners sat. Neither of them was what a person could call sane or normal, and both of them knew it, but the attraction between them was undeniable. If only Ezra would get his head out of his ass…

And stop running himself into the ground chasing zombies.

”Chris,” Josiah murmured genially. Josiah, of course, was old enough and wise enough to know that the current state of constant siege required rest and relaxation between calls to arms. He stayed put, sipping his brew, and studied Chris. Chris bristled at the scrutiny.

“Got something to say, Preacher?” he asked finally, nodding his thanks as Inez put a cup of coffee before him.

“Just wondering how long you’re going to let him jump in every time the zombies show up at our door,” Josiah said quietly. “Nathan thinks it’s bad for his health. Damn sure ain’t good for his soul.”

Chris drained his drink and grinned bitterly. “We all know _that’s_ not going to be what kills him, Josiah. And his soul’s his own. Ain’t my place to tell him what to do. Like he’d listen, anyway.”

Josiah looked at him in that penetrating way he had. Damn annoying. “Shows how little you know, my friend.” He sighed. “He’d do damn near anything you told him to.”

Chris’s jaw tightened in annoyance. All he’d wanted was a cup of coffee. He stood, listening to the rifles and the pistols as the volleys slowed to a stop and Buck called out, “All right, boys! Clean up time!”

Chris met Josiah’s eyes with a hard glare. “Looks like I’m on clean up.” Anything to get away from that damn knowing smile.

He headed for the gate, surprised not to see Vin there. The young rifleman wasn’t in the towers either.

“Where’s Tanner?” he asked Buck, watching Ezra trot up to them. He had to admit that, even with the lift in energy Ezra always seemed to get after a fight, the gambler looked exhausted.

“Went out on an errand through the horse gate at dawn,” Jim Riordan said, pulling on his gloves as he prepared to help burn the bodies. “Rode that gelding he’s been training, Peso, I think he calls him? Said he’d be back by noontime.”

Chris frowned and watched Ezra do the same. For all Standish and Tanner had butted heads at the beginning, they were kindred spirits in too many ways, and the friendship growing between them was good to see. But now, Ezra was worried.

“He say where he was going?” Chris asked.

“Sorry, Mr. Larabee,” Riordan said. “Just said he wouldn’t be long. Could be running over to Collinsville.”

Collinsville was a small village, newly grown in the changed landscape of New Mexico territory. So many towns had made plain old dumbass mistakes in the beginning, letting in the zombies without ever knowing they were doing it. The new towns were different, more like Four Corners had become under the guidance of first Josiah and Nathan and then the rest of them.

Like Four Corners, Collinsville was walled around and manned all day and all night. They had just enough space to breed some of the ponies and horses they had that hadn’t been wiped out by the sickness, plus room for gardens and a few cows to keep them in foodstuff and milk. Had a man there that made a fair cheese. Could be Tanner had gone there to trade for some for one of the merchants in Four Corners. Boy would do damn near anything to escape the confinement of the town now and again.

Chris sighed, adding another worry to his mind. Ezra made to join the clean up crew, dragging but doggedly determined, and Chris decided he’d have to remove a worry to make up for the one Vin had just put on him. He caught Ezra’s arm in a firm grip.

“Mr. Larabee—“

“You ain’t going out, Ezra,” he said clearly. He nodded to Buck, ignoring his leering smile, and lead Ezra toward the boarding house. He tried not to read anything into the fact that Standish went so damned willingly. “You ain’t been sleeping, and Nathan’s worried about your health.”

Ezra snorted at that, but the action became a rolling, painful-sounding bark that lasted for a long minute and left him looking more spent than before.

“You’ll get some rest before the next wave.”

Ezra sighed and allowed himself to be manhandled. “Because there will always be a next wave.” He looked up as they reached the boarding house, his brow knit in confusion. “Why are we not repairing to my room?” he asked. “If you expect me to rest—”

“Can’t trust you to do it there,” Chris said bluntly, ignoring the hurt in Ezra’s eyes with difficulty. “You can take a long nap in my room.”

Ezra tensed up predictably. “In _your_ room?” he repeated cautiously. “With you?”

Chris grinned wolfishly. He just couldn’t help it. “Well I’ll be there, sure,” he agreed. “Ain’t planning on sleeping, though.”

It was no surprise when Ezra pulled his arm out of Chris’s grasp. “We have discussed this before, Chris,” he murmured, angry and hurt and defeated and just damn tired. “I cannot allow myself—“

“To sleep?” Chris broke in, willfully ignoring what he knew Ezra meant. “Sure you can. Got some of that stinky salve Nathan has for your breathing. Might help you sleep some, if you let it.”

Ezra glared at him.

“I ain’t gonna do nothing, Ezra,” he promised, again steering the younger man toward the door. “You need to rest or you’re gonna fall over in the middle of a fight and then where the hell will we be?”

“Still in the midst of two dozen fine marksmen,” Ezra quipped feebly. He really must have been done in—he was starting to lean on Chris, and Ezra Standish didn’t lean on anyone.

Chris didn’t let himself think about how good it felt to have Ezra trust him like this. The man had been on the run and unwanted since this whole thing started, and scared of himself to boot.

He wanted Chris, that was obvious, but Ezra wouldn’t do anything about it. He was scarred and sullied and whatever other crap he threw on his own mind to make him terrified to be with anyone anymore. That it was maybe even true that he was a danger to others didn’t make Chris feel any better or want him any less.

Chris tried to tell himself he wouldn’t take advantage, even as he knew that Ezra hadn’t slept properly since the cold snap started a week ago. Even as he led Ezra, almost unresisting now, to his own room and sat him down on his own bed.

“Best take your coat and such off, if you don’t want Nathan’s concoction to ruin ‘em,” he said bluntly. He’d left some warm coals in the brazier, and he worked at stoking it into something that might heat the room a bit better.

“Chris, please…” Ezra clearly meant to say more, but he fell silent and started taking off his top clothes instead, leaving his pants and boots and such just as they were. When he was stripped to the waist, he looked up at Chris, defiant.

Chris didn’t look at the younger man’s bare frontside—didn’t want to spook him. Instead, he went to the dresser and brought down a little jar of sticky salve that he’d gotten from Nathan a while back. The healer hadn’t asked why Chris wanted it and Chris hadn’t bothered to tell him.

He sat behind Ezra, feeling the shiver that went through the man at his nearness. Or hell, maybe Ezra was just that exhausted. The salve was supposed to help loosen his muscles, quiet his cough. God willing, it might bring him a little peace, at least for today.

Chris leaned forward. “You ready, Ezra?” he asked gently.

Ezra chuckled bitterly. “Do I really have a choice, Mr. Larabee?”

Chris laid one sticky hand on Ezra’s back and trailed down the plane of it with a strong stroke, wringing a groan from the man before him as he encountered a fair sized knot. “Sort of.”

“I hardly need to be treated as a child,” Ezra reminded him, coughing deeply as the pungent salve began to work on the crap in his lungs. “I think you know my constitution is a good bit stronger than any outward appearance might lead one to believe it is.”

And still Chris worked that salve into his back, feeling the tension begin to go out of the younger man, bit by agonizing bit as his lungs cleared. “You talk too much,” he told him. “Hell, you think too much.”

Ezra probably wanted to say something to that, but it came out as another groan, this one sounding much more sensual and causing Chris to smile. Ezra must have heard it in his own voice, too, because he froze right back up again.

“I ain’t gonna jump you when you can barely sit up,” Chris told him angrily. “Jesus, Standish, just lie down and relax for once. I’ll take care of you.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Ezra said, only half joking as he let Chris move enough so that he could lie face down on the bed.

Chris just snorted in response and went to work more seriously on the southerner’s back. It wasn’t but ten minutes before Standish was sleeping peacefully for the first time in who knew how long. Chris shifted off the bed, cleaned his hands, took down a book from his shelf, and settled into the chair in the corner to read.

Chris didn’t expect this kind of compliance to last, but for the time being, it fit the bill. Ezra was going to get some sleep if Chris had to tie him to the bed.

Damn it. Why’d he have to go and think that…

*******

“Rider coming in!” JD called out.

Chris put down the book he was near to finishing and headed for the window. Ezra’d been sleeping deep for a long while and the noontime had come and gone. He figured he’d wake the other man in a bit to eat something. Maybe the zombies would hold off long enough to give them all a rest.

“About damn time,” Chris whispered, watching Vin ride in on his paint, carrying a bundle on the back of his saddle, and make a beeline to the checking stalls. Not that they were likely to find a mark on him. And he’d’ve shot the damn horse if Peso had been bitten. Vin wasn’t one to let a horse suffer.

Chris looked over to the man on the bed and made a decision. He slipped out the door and closed it firmly behind him and headed for the stalls.

 

“Where you been, Tanner?” Chris called, watching Vin shake hands with Riordan as the other man gave him a clean bill of health and gave him back his guns. Josiah had had the idea to check each person who came into town to make sure none of them had been bitten by one of the zombies out on the trail. So far, it had saved Four Corners from tragedy a few times. But today wasn’t one of those days and Vin Tanner clasped arms with him and headed for the saloon.

“Had to get something,” he said, sounding like a little kid about to give his momma a daisy as he hefted the blanket-wrapped bundle in his arms. “Told Riordan I’d be back.”

“Didn’t tell us you were going in the first place,” Chris griped.

Vin smirked at him as he pushed open the saloon doors. “Sorry, Dad. Reckon I’ll check with you first next time.”

Chris snorted and stood back to watch as Vin called out to Inez and headed for the Seven’s table. “Inez!” he called again. “Hey, Inez! I got you something!”

Inez popped in from the back room, curiosity warring with irritation. “Why are you yelling, Senor Vin?” she asked testily. “I am not—” She smiled huge as Vin unwrapped the package, showing a whole pile of pine branches and berry twigs. She lunged at him to give him a hug. “OH! Senor Vin, que creo te quiero lo mejor de todo!”

“What’d she say?” JD asked as he walked in on the scene of such exuberance, as Ezra would say.

“She loves Vin more than Buck, because Vin brought her pine boughs,” Josiah translated loosely, shooting Buck a crafty look.

“Ain’t the only reason she loves him more,” JD teased, ducking when Buck would have swung at his hat. JD looked at the greenery. “Wow, Vin, where’d you get it all?”

“I’m assuming you headed out to the foothills like a fool,” Chris put in, coming to sit with the others. “I know you think you’re invincible, but that was just plain stupid.”

Vin shrugged and Chris had visions of the kid getting himself killed for real one day. The zombies—the cold arms, as Vin called them—might not leave him alone and charmed forever. “Weren’t a trouble. The cold arms are all bothering the towns. The snow in the foothills confuses ‘em.” He grinned winningly at Inez, and Chris saw Buck’s jaw tighten in jealousy. “‘Sides, I figured Inez needed something real fine to dress up the place this Christmas. Ain’t much outside the walls to make it special, after all.”

“Well, I, for one, am very glad that _one_ of you men understands the importance of celebrating Christmas properly.” Inez gave Vin a lingering kiss and carted away the blanket full of boughs.

“That was just plain underhanded, Tanner,” Buck grumbled. “You know I can’t maneuver like you—”

“You never used to have a problem ‘maneuvering,’ Buck,” Chris teased. “Getting slow in your old age?”

Buck slammed back his drink and clearly decided a change of subject was in order. “Where’s Ezra?” he asked. “And please God, don’t tell me he’s up in the tower keeping guard.”

Chris shrugged. “He’s sleeping.”

Vin grinned big and nodded to Josiah as the older man ambled back into the saloon and headed for them. “How’d you manage that, Cowboy?” he asked.

Chris smirked at Josiah. “Took an old man’s advice,” he replied.

“Turned out I was right, didn’t it?” Josiah said, smiling at one of the barmaids as she brought him a beer. “How long you think he’ll last?”

Chris figured Josiah wasn’t really asking how long Ezra was going to sleep, but he’d worry about how to get the younger man to see things his way some other time.

“He’ll likely be down sometime soon,” he said. “Sooner, if the zombies come sniffing around again.”

Buck threw back a shot and gave Chris another leer. “Will he be coming down from his room, or yours?”

Chris just smiled and headed for the door.

“Ha ha! Merry Christmas, Old Dog!” Buck yelled after him.

Chris stood outside the doors of the saloon, looking at the little town he’d stumbled into in the midst of the hell the world had become. He’d been soulless when he got here. Years of grief had all but burned him out. But this little town, this strange group of men he’d accidentally gathered round him…?

Hell, maybe it really _was_ going to be a merry Christmas after all.

********  
the end


End file.
